SOBIBÓR - Holocaust Handbooks

74 J. GRAF, T. KUES, C. MATTOGNO, SOBIBÓR
No witness statement described this killing method, though. It was,
in fact, invented by the Polish investigators. The Polish War Crimes Office
had already opted for one of the methods mentioned in the Polish
underground press, the one using unspecified “gases,” and applied it to
the “gas chamber” installation. The Polish investigators themselves
added the “exhaust gas produced by an engine,” which they pulled out
of the so-called “Gerstein report,” as we have already made clear elsewhere.
142 Let us state here that, on 30 January 1946, the assistant general
prosecutor of the French Republic, Charles Dubost, handed to the
Nuremberg tribunal a file of documents, registered as PS-1553, which
also contained a report written in French by Kurt Gerstein 143 and dated
26 April 1945. 144 This report, in which Gerstein describes an alleged
visit of his to the Be��ec camp, was not read in court, but another version
of it, with the story of the gas chambers operating on the basis of a
Diesel engine, appeared in the French newspaper France Soir on 4 July
1945 with the title “I have exterminated up to 11,000 people per
day.” 145 Furthermore, on 16 January 1947 a German translation of document
PS-1553 was presented as Exhibit 428 during the Nuremberg trial
of the physicians. 146
Hence as early as the immediate post war years the story of the extermination
of Jews at the Be��ec, Sobibór and Treblinka camps was
known widely enough to inspire the Polish investigators.
Another revealing aspect of what the investigators “established” is
the fact that on the one hand they were ignorant of the story of the two
alleged gassing buildings and on the other hand they claimed a number
142 C. Mattogno, J. Graf, op. cit. (note 10, Engl. ed.), pp. 70-76.
143 The German national Kurt Gerstein had joined the SS in early 1941, where he became a
member of the Institute for Hygiene of the Waffen-SS, eventually serving as head of the
technical disinfection services. At war’s end he was arrested by the French, and in their
custody he wrote several highly dubious and at times absurd “confessions” about mass
murder scenes he claimed to have witnessed in the Treblinka and Be��ec camps. Shortly
thereafter he committed suicide… The importance of Gerstein’s reports for mainstream
Holocaust historiography on the Be��ec, Sobibór and Treblinka camps is substantial; for
a critical analysis see André Chelain, Faut-il fusiller Henri Roques? Polémiques, Paris,
1986. Editor’s remark.
144 IMT, vol. VI, pp. 332-334 and 363f.
145 G. Kelber, “Un bourreau des camps nazis avoue: ‘J’ai exterminé jusqu’à 11,000 personnes
par jour.’” France Soir, 4 July 1945, pp. 1f.
146 Militärgerichtshof, Fall 1: der Ärzteprozeß, Nuernberg, hearing of 16 January 1947, mimeographed
transcripts, pp. 1806-1815; Staatsarchiv Nürnberg. A long extract from the
document can be found on pp. 1808-1814; published condensed Engl. edition: U.S. Government
(ed.), Trials of War Criminals before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals under
Control Council Law No. 10, vol. I: “The Medical Case,” Nuernberg, U.S. Government
Printing Office, Washington 1949, pp. 865-870.